Question 16013 — housing

Summary

Mr. Abdelkader Lahmar questions the Minister of Cities and Housing on the Government's intentions regarding the sustainability and generalization of rent control. Implemented in 70 cities across the country, rent control is popular with tenants and local elected officials. The latest report on the issue, that of economists from the Public Policy Institute, shows that the system works, by producing positive effects: reduction in rents by 2 to 5%, limitation of increases in tense areas, absence of contraction in rental supply in Paris and redistribution of hundreds of millions of euros in favor of tenants. However, the Government prefers to retain other conclusions from the report. In fact, it is the cost for public finances, linked to the drop in tax revenues on owners' rental income, which is highlighted. before to oppose the generalization of the system. Such rhetoric is surprising. Thus, the National Housing Confederation (CNL) asks: “Should we henceforth renounce any policy of social justice since it reduces the profits of the most well-off? ". If the system does have a cost for the State via the drop in owners' income, nothing prevents the Government from making up for this shortfall by implementing in place of more progressive taxation allowing the wealthiest to better participate in common costs: reestablishment of the ISF, income tax with 14 brackets, elimination of unnecessary tax loopholes, “Zucman” tax, etc. There are many avenues to put an end to the fiscal and social injustice that has characterized the last decade. The implementation of such tax tools would have the advantage of accentuating the benefits of rent control by deepening the redistributive and egalitarian nature of the system. To say, following private owners and their lobbies, that rent control does not resolve all of the problems posed by the housing crisis, cannot be an argument for its abandonment or weakening. Rent control does indeed reduce costs for tenants, so it fulfills its objective. In These conditions, nothing stands in the way of the perpetuation of the experiment and its generalization to all tense areas. Other measures must of course be taken to put an end to the housing crisis that the country has been experiencing for too many years. Specialized associations regularly make proposals on this subject: massive construction of social housing, introduction of a rental permit in urban areas, creation of real social housing security, with the establishment of a rental protection fund guaranteeing everyone an effective right to housing, etc. The Government can absolutely take advantage of these proposals to give them the force of law. A few months before the scheduled end of the rent control experiment, it is therefore the duty of the Government to perpetuate this system and prepare its generalization. If improvements can and must be made, parliamentarians and local elected officials are ready to discuss them. However, giving up an instrument of social justice on the basis of fragile budgetary arguments is not an acceptable option. The ball is in the Government's court. He asks him what he is waiting for to react.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

Timeline

No timeline events have been ingested for this record yet.

Votes

No vote records are attached yet.

Versions

No version snapshots stored. Document URLs remain at the source.

Documents

No documents linked.

Sponsors

No sponsors or actors listed by the source.

Related records

No cross-record relationships stored yet.